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Rules of Relegation

Today's post is about English soccer, erm, I mean football. So okay, it's not the most popular sport in this country and the team I'm talking about is even less popular, maybe downright anonymous: Manchester City.

Not Manchester United. Manchester City.

In England's Premier League, Manchester City began the season having gone on a spending spree to attract several big name players and make a push for a top six finish. One of the big purchases was US National Team captain Claudio Reyna who joined Manchester City in a $3.9 million last minute deal from recently relegated Sunderland.

Relegated, you ask? Imagine Major League Baseball setting up a system where the teams finishing in last place in each division were forced to play a AAA minor league schedule in the following season while the top minor league teams get promoted to the majors. This relegation/promotion scheme would cascade down through the minor league system to the AA and A teams. That's roughly how the English soccer system works.

So a top six finish in the Premier League is crucial because it guarantees a place during the next season in one of the European cup championships which include the Champions League, the UEFA Cup, and the Inter-Toto Cup. These can be quite lucrative campaigns for a club and can dramatically increase their prestige throughout England and Europe. The pre-season spending spree was widely interpreted as an investment in Manchester City's future in European cup play.

Alas, after a lackluster season, including a 15-game losing streak at home which was only just broken this past Saturday, the Blues find themselves instead in a battle to avoid relegation to the First Division. The team remains positive: as of this writing, bookmakers are putting the odds of City's relegation at 8/1. For Reyna's sake, I hope the team can stick it out. It would be sad to have played two different relegated teams in two years.